


Some Slight Misunderstandings

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Flirting, M/M, Miscommunication, Stormtrooper Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7095946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt: there's a language of coded signals among Stormtroopers, things like offering to clean someone's blaster or polish their armor, in order to flirt without drawing attention. Finn is trying very hard to flirt with Poe Dameron, and it just plain isn't working.</p>
<p>Poe is trying pretty hard to flirt with Finn, too. Jess and Rey think they're both kind of idiots sometimes.</p>
<p>Beta by my ever-patient Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Slight Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Небольшое недоразумение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14090811) by [Lenuchka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenuchka/pseuds/Lenuchka)



At first, Finn just thinks he’s doing it wrong.

He’s never tried to flirt before, after all. There wasn’t anyone in the First Order he wanted to share beds with, or who’d wanted to share beds with him. So though Finn knows the _theory_ of flirting, he’s never actually tried it before, and it’s entirely possible that he messed up somehow.

But surely even if Finn is doing it wrong, Poe should notice after a while, and it’s been _weeks_. Weeks of Finn cleaning Poe’s blaster (not that Poe fires it often, but still) and tidying their shared room to Phasma’s unrelenting standards and saving him tidbits from dinner and helping fix Black One and offering to scrub down BB-8 after the little droid gets stuck in a mud puddle -

And it’s not like Finn _minds_ doing any of those things, he’s honestly more comfortable in a tidy room and learning to fix X-Wings is sort of fascinating, he could clean blasters in his _sleep_ (and has) and BB-8 looked so depressed that Finn would have cleaned it regardless of the other implications -

But Poe doesn’t seem to notice at _all_. Finn’s done everything short of offering to polish Poe’s armor - and that only because Poe doesn’t _have_ armor - and Poe just claps him on the shoulder and says, “Thanks, buddy,” with that knee-weakening grin, and then - nothing.

Finn is about ready to _scream_.

Rey tries to help. The few opportunities they have to talk privately, long-distance encrypted comm calls at irregular and too-infrequent intervals, she gives suggestions based on her own observations back on Jakku. Finn tries sharing food, but he can’t really beat up Poe’s enemies (except insofar as Finn is also fighting the First Order), and water isn’t nearly as priceless on D’Qar as it is on Jakku, so giving Poe water wouldn’t be quite as impressive a declaration. Poe is always grateful when Finn brings him dinner the nights he’s working late on paperwork or Black One, but while gratitude is nice, it’s not quite what Finn is hoping for.

Finally, Finn decides that if _his_ best friend doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong, maybe _Poe’s_ best friend will have a better idea, and picks a day when Poe is out on a supply run with Snap to pull Jess Pava aside and ask her, rather plaintively, how people flirt in the Resistance.

Jess stares at him for a while, and then she laughs for a _long_ time. Finn waits patiently until she is done, wondering what precisely is so funny; but Resistance fighters often laugh at things Finn doesn’t understand.

And then - because Jess is actually quite a nice woman under the snark - she tells him what he needs to do.

*

Poe has always been a tactile man. He slings his arm around people’s shoulders, he hugs people, he bumps shoulders to punctuate his horrible jokes, he dances filthily enough that he’s caused a minor scandal or two. But there’s _tactile_ and there’s _flirting_ , and what he’s been doing with Finn is well on the flirting end of that scale.

Like, okay, hand-holding. Poe doesn’t hold hands, hasn’t since he was tiny, and wow, he’s been missing out, because holding hands with Finn is _delightful_. And makes Finn light up like a kriffing sunrise. So Poe holds hands with him a lot.

Or hugs - not just ‘we all survived that impossible mission!’ hugs or ‘we finally found the map to Luke Skywalker!’ hugs but just - hey, it’s Tuesday, there’s Finn, let’s hug. We just woke up (and isn’t that a special form of torture, rooming with Finn and getting to see him half-naked morning and evening), let’s hug. We haven’t seen each other in a couple hours, let’s hug.

Finn seems to like the hugs a lot, but for all the teasing Jess and Snap give Poe about his sudden addiction to Finn’s warm arms, Finn also doesn’t seem to see anything _strange_ about it. Or to notice that Poe doesn’t hug his other friends nearly that much.

Poe puts his arm around Finn’s shoulders while they’re watching holos. Finn leans against him happily and doesn’t take the hint.

Poe brushes his fingers against Finn’s while they’re eating dinner. Finn grabs his hand happily and Poe eats dinner left-handed and Finn doesn’t take the hint.

Poe offers to rub the lotion that’s supposed to keep Finn’s scar from stiffening up into Finn’s back, and Finn accepts happily, lies purring and contented under Poe’s hands as Poe gives the best damn backrubs he knows how to give, every day for weeks on end, and Finn doesn’t take the hint.

Poe falls asleep on Finn’s shoulder (that one’s legitimately an accident), and Finn sits up all night so Poe can get enough sleep and when Poe wakes up bleary-eyed and uncaffeinated and brushes a grateful kiss against Finn’s cheek Finn _doesn’t take the hint_.

Poe is about ready to scream. Jess isn’t any help - she just laughs at him when he begs for advice, jokes about the famous Dameron charm failing for once - so Poe takes the opportunity given to him by a particularly boring supply run and sends a comm message to Rey, far away on her Jedi retreat. If anyone has a better insight into Finn’s psyche than Poe does, it’s Rey.

He gets a message back, some few hours before he and Snap return to D’Qar. It’s three words. Poe reads it several times, then takes a deep breath and nods firmly. If that’s Rey’s best advice, then Poe will damn well follow it.

*

Finn is, of course, waiting for Poe when Poe gets back - all else being equal, Finn really prefers to be on the tarmac when Poe returns from a mission just to make sure that Poe’s all in one piece. This time, thank the Force, Poe comes trotting down the little transport’s ramp with a wide grin and no sign of injury at all, glances around, and makes a beeline for Finn. Finn opens his arms, anticipating the delightful hug with which Poe always greets him, and is not disappointed - Poe hugs him hard, thumping him enthusiastically on the back, and then steps away and runs a hand through his hair. Finn takes a deep breath.

“Poe, I -” he says, at the same time as Poe says, a little nervously, “Finn, I -”

“You go first,” they both say, in perfect unison.

“No, you,” Finn protests, and Poe shakes his head, gestures for Finn to start.

Off to one side, Jess puts her head in her hands and tries desperately not to start laughing, because if she starts, she’s not going to stop for a while, and Rey wants eyewitness accounts of this moment.

“Okay,” Finn says at last, takes a final deep breath, and says, “I really like you and - and would you be my boyfriend?”

There’s a short pause while Poe stares at him in astonishment, and then Poe says, “Buddy, you just took the words right out of my mouth.”

“What, _really_?” Finn asks incredulously.

“Well, okay, I was going to say, ‘I love you, please be mine,’ but - the sentiment’s the same, right?” Poe asks, starting to grin.

“I...yeah, I think so,” Finn says, grinning back. “So.”

“So.”

Jess is biting her knuckles so as not to let the guffaws out.

Poe glances over at Jess, snorts inelegantly, and steps forward into Finn’s space again, wraps his arms around Finn’s shoulders and says, softly, “Can I kiss you?”

Finn wraps his own arms around Poe’s waist. “Yeah,” he murmurs back, and then Poe’s lips are on his, and it’s -

It’s perfect.

*

(“Oh, so that’s how Stormtroopers flirt? Here I thought you just liked having a clean room.”

“I mean, I do. But I don’t think you should be teasing - it’s not like your way worked any better.”

“...Fair. But now that we’ve got that all straightened out, if I suggest that I’d like to give you another backrub…?”

“Yes, Poe, I would like to have sex with you.”

“I’ll even give you the actual backrub, too.”

“Oh, wow. I might swoon.”

“Sass, nothing but sass. I should never have introduced you to Jess.”

“You’re complaining about _me_ being snarky, Mister ‘Who Talks First’ Dameron?”

“Force damn it, come here and kiss me.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”)

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr now over at imaginarygolux.tumblr.com; I don't know what I'm doing, but do please drop by!


End file.
